Özgür Öğret

Özgür Öğret is a Turkish freelance journalist and CPJ’s Turkey representative. He was lead researcher for the 2012 CPJ special report, "Turkey's Press Freedom Crisis."

Demonstrators

Drop in jailed Turkish journalists belies a long-simmering press freedom crisis

In CPJ’s 2023 annual prison census, Turkey was the world’s 10th worst jailer of journalists—its most press-friendly ranking in almost a decade—with 13 behind bars, down from 40 the previous year. But the latest numbers don’t tell the full story. Turkey has consistently vied with China for the top slot in CPJ’s list of shame…

Read More ›

In Turkey, cautious optimism that tough election could be good for press freedom

Turkey’s powerful Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) are facing one of the toughest challenges of their two decades in office. Polls ahead of the country’s May 14 presidential and parliamentary elections suggest that the president and his long-ruling party could lose to the opposition coalition of Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, leader of…

Read More ›

Newly released from Turkish prison, Kurdish journalist Nedim Türfent reflects on sham prosecution

Nedim Türfent knows why he spent six and a half years of his life behind bars as a convicted terrorist in Turkey. The court that sentenced him explained the verdict in official documents: Because he writes “exaggerated and disturbing news stories” about the state.   After his prison term ended in November 2022, “It was…

Read More ›

A raised hand holds a large ID card showing journalists in jail in place of a photo.

Turkish presidency reintroduces press card controls that court found restrictive

On April 1 this year, press freedom groups in Turkey chalked up a small win when the nation’s top administrative court, the Council of State, suspended 2018 rules that made it easier for the authorities to cancel or refuse press cards. The changes had transferred authority over press cards to the presidency and barred them…

Read More ›

A man's hands hold a tablet against a backdrop of people seated in groups.

Turkish social media law consolidates news censorship under ‘right to be forgotten’

In late 2020, a Turkish court ruled that the leftist daily Evrensel should remove a news report alleging that a presidential advisor forged their high school diploma. Evrensel complied, Erdi Tütmez, news editor for the outlet told CPJ by email in January; the report was no longer available when CPJ reviewed the site, though it…

Read More ›

Turkish courts play whack-a-mole with independent news outlets

In March, 2020, Turkey’s Constitutional Court issued an unexpected decision, overruling a local court that blocked a news website in 2015, according to news reports. But the editor who filed the appeal with the court remains unhappy, he told CPJ via WhatsApp, because the original website remains inaccessible in Turkey — along with the 62 replacements…

Read More ›

The pro-opposition newspaper Sözcü on May 19 published a blank edition under the headline, "May 19 press freedom special edition" to protest the arrest of two of its journalists the day before.

Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of May 21, 2017

Two journalists arraigned, finance manager released A court in Istanbul arraigned Gökmen Ulu and Mediha Olgun, journalists for the secularist, nationalist daily Sözcü, one of the last remaining widely circulated newspapers to be consistently critical of the government, on charges of “committing a crime in the name of a [terrorist] organization without being a member,…

Read More ›